-Unless otherwise specified, wimlib and its associated programs, scripts,
-documentation, and other files may be redistributed and/or modified under the
-terms of the GNU General Public License; either version 3 of the License, or (at
-your option) any later version. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted
-by law. See the file COPYING.GPLv3 for more details.
+wimlib (meaning all programs, scripts, libraries, documentation, and other files
+that are part of the wimlib project -- not just the "libwim" library) may be
+redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License;
+either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. A copy
+of this license can be found in the file COPYING.GPLv3.
-Alternatively, when not prohibited by conflict with a third-party software
-license, the library portion of wimlib may be redistributed and/or modified
-under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License; either version 3 of
-the License, or (at your option) any later version. There is NO WARRANTY, to
-the extent permitted by law. See the file COPYING.LGPLv3 for more details.
+Also, when not prohibited by a third-party software license, libwim (the library
+portion of wimlib) may be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the
+GNU Lesser General Public License; either version 3 of the License, or (at your
+option) any later version. A copy of this license can be found in the file
+COPYING.LGPLv3. This is offered as a "dual license", meaning that you can
+choose either this LGPLv3+ option or the above-mentioned GPLv3+ option.
-----------------------------------------
+In either case there is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
-NOTE! The primary reason for the GPL/LGPL "dual licensing" for the library is
-that on UNIX-like systems, wimlib can optionally be linked to the third-party
-library "libntfs-3g", which is licensed GPLv2+. Under some interpretations of
-the GPL, this would require that wimlib be licensed under the GPL as well.
-However, a binary copy of wimlib that was compiled without libntfs-3g support
-(for example; the exception may be applicable in other situations as well)
-logically cannot be affected by libntfs-3g's license and should therefore be
-free to be redistributed under the LGPL instead of the GPL.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+NOTE! The reason for the "when not prohibited by a third-party software license"
+condition on the LGPL option for libwim is that libwim can optionally be linked
+to the third-party library "libntfs-3g", which is licensed under the GPL.
+Usually the GPL is interpreted in a way that means that any binary that uses a
+GPL library must be licensed under the GPL as well, not (for example) the LGPL.
+
+Therefore, if your build of libwim links to libntfs-3g, then you can't choose
+the LGPL option. You may choose the LGPL option for Windows builds of libwim,
+since they don't link to libntfs-3g. Likewise, you may choose the LGPL option
+for UNIX builds of libwim that were built with './configure --without-ntfs-3g'.
NOTE! The file COPYING.CC0 contains a public domain dedication. This public
domain dedication does not apply to wimlib as a whole, but rather to individual
git://wimlib.net / wimlib / blobdiff